Books like Mochi Queen — picked by fans

This is such a wonderful read for children, especially when they have ever felt frustrated or upset when something they tried didn’t work out.

The story beautifully shows that frustration and failure are normal parts of the creative and learning process. 

In the book, a young girl sets out to build the most magnificent thing. Along the way, she fails again and again. However, through persistence, reflection, and creativity, she eventually succeeds. It’s a powerful reminder for young learners that big dreams often require patience and perseverance.

Zoe Washington’s situation grabs at our heartstrings: On her 12th birthday she receives a letter from the father she’s never known - a letter from prison. She knew Marcus had been convicted of a terrible crime, but she’s been growing up happily with her mom and stepdad, with her birth father firmly out of mind.

But in the letter Marcus claims he’s innocent, and Zoe sets out to uncover the secret of his incarceration. The issues in this book go beyond the promising new father-daughter relationship, extending to the systemic racism of the US criminal courts. It’s a challenging but heartwarming read. 

I love reading stories of how ordinary people achieve extraordinary things by overcoming challenges, believing in their dreams, and not accepting defeat.

The 100 stories of women featured in this book, along with exquisite portraits of each by female artists, start with the words of a traditional fairy tale “Once upon a time…”, but instead of tales of helpless princesses there are inspiring portraits of women with grit, smarts, and tenacity. Heroes in every sense of the word, for all of us, young and old, to admire.

The title alone intrigued me. Once I learned the premise of this middle-grade novel, I was hooked: a group of students supporting one another through the ups and downs of navigating their periods is shut down by the school administration after receiving complaints. 

As the investigative reporter of her middle school’s newspaper, Riley’s no stranger at going the distance to uncover a story. Using her fact-finding skills, Riley hunts for the truth on who put an end to their club and why. Filled with humor and heart, this book had me up all night to finish in one sitting, cheering Riley and her friends on as they fight to save their club and stand up for their rights. 

You will never look at (or wear) a kimono the same way after reading Amy Sueyoshi’s ingenious investigation into the making of an American leisure culture awash in stereotypes of Japanese and Chinese sexuality. With a focus on San Francisco, Sueyoshi’s book reveals how Anglo-European Americans appropriated “Oriental” dress and design aesthetics, even as the white press and legal system displayed overt hostility toward people of Asian descent. This book is one of my very favorites among a growing body of work that centers on the making of racial identities within histories of sexuality. Sueyoshi is a superb writer, and in this book, she excels at honoring the humanity of Asian-descended people within a white leisure culture that insisted on their inferiority.

If you want to delve into first-hand accounts of what life was like in the incarceration camps, you’ll find a lot of books for that, but you could be overwhelmed in the process. What I like about Kamei’s recent book is that it is a handy compilation of over a hundred engaging, heartbreaking, and inspiring descriptions of incarceration from those who directly experienced and fought against the prejudice that created it. Best of all, you can use this book as a jumping-off point for learning more about any of the individuals you encounter here. 

Kyo Maclear is one of my favorite authors—someone who can gracefully transition from biography to graphic novel to memoir without losing her signature style, which is lyrical without being heavy-handed and playful without being cute. Like another book on my list, this one is brilliantly illustrated by the incredible Julie Morstad, who similarly manages to perfectly capture the unique spirit of each subject while remaining singularly herself. 

This story of Gyo Fujikawa, the artist who created the first book featuring babies of all races tumbling and playing happily together, weaves together myriad themes—the women’s suffrage movement, the internment of Japanese citizens during WWII, the sexism in academia, and the racism that first plagued young Gyo at school, and later made it so difficult for the adult Gyo to get her first book published. It manages all this while being effortlessly readable and entertaining. Brava, Kyo!

Having grown up as one of few Asians in my high school, I didn’t really prioritize defining my identity as a Japanese-American. All I really cared about was blending in. But after reading this wonderful book, I realized being connected to my ethnicity and culture was both important and natural.

Olivia, the Japanese-American protagonist, spends her days with her family, traveling from Oregon to Arkansas in search of work. The “floating world” is one of temporariness and fleeting observations, like listening to a neighbor playing records or noting the color of a waitress’s painted nails. Olivia deals with tensions within her family as well as the racism they encounter on the road.

For me, this book helped me realize that I could honor the specificities of who I am against a general backdrop of the community within which I existed.

I did not initially include this book until I took a class of middle school English students to the library and more than half of them went to the graphic novel shelves. Who better to tell the story of the U.S. version of concentration camps – internment camps for loyal U.S. citizens of Japanese descent – than George Takei of Star Trek fame (and more)?

Pictures really do tell more than a thousand words. Takei’s autobiographical novel offers moments of joy but paints an infuriating picture of the United States at its worst in the Twentieth Century. The loyalty of Takei’s father to the nation that imprisoned the family and so many others can seem like a contradiction, but it is perhaps the most rewarding component of the book. The illustrations are excellent.

At the age of eleven I had never heard of internment camps in my own state of California until I came across this book, and I remember being astonished such a thing happened in the United States.

Though this title has been around for many years, Wakatsuki Houston’s autobiography book is still relevant and gently but factually introduces young readers to the unjust discrimination inflicted on innocent civilians/citizens. She tells of her family’s life before Manzanar, at the camp, and her pre-teen/teen struggle to fit in at school when returning from internment.